


long live the car crash hearts

by courfeyradical



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Suicide, please heed the warning literally no one is alive at the end of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courfeyradical/pseuds/courfeyradical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Salvation isn’t at the bottom of a bottle, filled with alcohol or pills. Skov knows this. He’s not looking for salvation.</p><p>(or: four times Skov watches his friends die.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	long live the car crash hearts

The first time it happens, Skov realizes that they’re not immortal. There’s the jarring sound of metal twisting in a car crash. It’s a sound that for them has faded into background noise. He doesn’t turn to look, just takes another swig of  _ something.  _ Something impossible and very warm going down his throat. It takes a few seconds for Skov’s hazy brain to realize that it’s silent.

He’s the first to break the silence, dropping his bottle as soon as he turns and sees why everyone’s silent.

Kavinsky’s white sunglasses lay forgotten on the concrete. Everyone’s attention is on the sight of a wrecked car. Prokopenko’s.

He wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to run and hide, wants to spit ‘ _ i told you so’ _ s at Kavinsky. He doesn’t. He stands and looks just like the rest of the pack, frozen with horror and something else, like grief, settling low in his belly. No one calls for an ambulance. No one is getting out of that car.

\--

The second time is happens, Skov had realized that they could be immortal. You could be anything when you could get anything, raise the dead. Well. Kavinsky could be anything. The rest of them just got to be along for the ride. 

This time, he’s not surprised. Everyone’s watching, no one does anything. Not like there’s really anything they could do about dreamers’ disputes. Dragons and nightmares, you can’t fight those fires unless you have fire yourself. 

_ The world’s a nightmare.  _ It’s violent, loud, and big. Nothing less for the end of a king.

The spectacularity of it doesn’t make it hurt less. There’s another car crash, and this time Skov’s eyes instantly snap to the source of the sound. It’s an upsettingly familiar sight. White sunglasses on the ground, Prokopenko’s car fucked up. He doesn’t get out this time either.

(They pull him out. He’s not dead, that much they can tell, but he’s not  _ alive _ either. Skov supposes he hasn’t really been alive for quite some time. It’s not a thought that helps the second stab of pain in his stomach. Grief never gets easier.) 

\--

Crashes and explosions. The third time it happens, Skov starts to see a theme. Die how you live.

It’s cold out, dead of winter. The roads are icy and the three of them have been racing towards their own destructions like dogs without horses. Swan finds his next, off the side of a road. Another crashed Golf that no one is going to be getting out of. 

Skov decides that if he ever sees a Golf again he’s going to throw up. He does, actually, into the grass after he pulls off the road, while Jiang just watches the mangled car like it’s going to get him next.

He goes home, not his own, Kavinsky’s. No one’s done anything about the place yet, so he doesn’t get out of the dreamer’s bed for three days. He can’t bring things back, but at the very least he can see them again in his own dreams.

\--

Jiang wasn’t entirely wrong. The fourth time, it’s not a car. It’s stupid. Thinly veiled cocktail of suicide in a burning bottle.

They both know that you have to throw it unless you want your arm to be covered in burns and glass shards. He doesn’t throw it. Skov watches. It’s not the first time he’s watched someone die, and he knows there’s no point in stopping Jiang at this point. He’s not a hypocrite.

He sits on his car and has a cigarette. The pain is back, he still pretends he doesn’t know the word grief. Or alone.

\--

He crawls back into Kavinsky’s bed, barely gets up for a week. He’s wallowing, stalling, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. There’s no one to tell him to take care of himself. There’s no one to tell him when to stop, either, and he’s surrounded by impossible substances.

Salvation isn’t at the bottom of a bottle, filled with alcohol or pills. Skov knows this. He’s not looking for salvation.

It’s quiet, in a way that nothing associated with their king never was. But he’s gone and Skov was never loud on his own. There’s no soundtrack of metal clashing, no booming explosions. Just lights behind his eyes and memories of the only people he wanted to know.

  
And then, there’s nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry lmao
> 
> title is from thriller by fall out boy


End file.
